The Leaky Gut Protocol: A Research-Based Plan to Restore Gut Health

Introduction to Leaky Gut 0:00

About 70% or so of your immune tissue itself lives in the gut in what's called the Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue. So when the barrier is compromised and inflammatory compounds are continuously crossing into circulation, your system is working overtime every single day without a break. That persistent activation is the thread that connects leaky gut to the skin issues, to join aches, the mood instability, for the fatigue and the brain fog. It is a mechanism, not a coincidence. And we'll come back to just how far that thread extends when we talk about mental health later in the show.

Welcome to Vitality Radio, The podcast that helps you make sense of natural supplements and thrive without pharma drugs. I'm Jared St. Clair. I grew up in a health food store and spent over 40 years now figuring out what works and what doesn't, so that you can make confident, informed decisions about nutrition, supplements and your health. Welcome back to Vitality Radio. I'm Jared St. Clair, and today we are going to go deep on something that I believe sits underneath more chronic health problems than almost any other single issue that we talk about on the show, leaky gut.

And not just what it is, but a real research informed protocol, product by product, dose by dose, with the science behind why this particular combination makes total sense as a whole system to help your body recover from this significant issue. So before I get into the protocol, I want to talk about the symptoms because you need to understand if you're dealing with leaky gut and you can really figure it out just by symptomology to a very large degree. And then I want to talk about what the leaky gut actually is, not just how it presents, but what's actually happening in the system.

And, then we'll get into the protocol. So, first let's talk how to know if maybe you are dealing with leakey gut. Of course, this isn't a diagnostic tool like you'd get from a doctor, it's a pretty good list of symptoms that give you a good indication that this may be going on. Most people, when they think of leaky gut, are thinking, or when I think a digestion, I guess, and gut health, they're thinking of bloating, gas, diarrhea, constipation, those types of things. And yes, Those are absolutely on the list of the symptom picture of Leaky Gut, but it's much broader than that.

If you've been living with unexplained fatigue that sleep doesn't fix, brain fog that comes and goes without a clear reason, mood instability or anxiety that doesn' match your life circumstances necessarily. Food sensitivities that keep multiplying. You know, you can't eat that thing anymore because you hurt when you do. Joint aches that seem to move around your body, skin issues, rashes, hives, eczema flares, and even acne that nobody can really explain. Leaky gut is a serious and underexplored piece of that picture.

Any autoimmune disease also from Hashimoto's to Crohn's, to lupus to RA, in my view, all have at least part of their origin story residing in a leaky gut. And the mental health connection in particular is something I want to spend real time on today because I think it's the most underappreciated and one of the more pervasive downstream effects of a compromised gut lining. But we'll get into that in minute. By the end of this episode, I wanted you to understand the mechanism What's driving it in your life and exactly what to do about it any fully informed protocol?

Including a step-by-step guide on how to use it We'll be introducing more of these comprehensive protocols as we go up vitality nutrition I want to give

Symptoms and What Leaky Gut Is 3:34

you a little backstory on that and we're gonna jump into what leaky gut actually is Jen and I were at the cell core practitioners conference in March That's every year in Boise. It's an amazing conference. I've talked about it on here before. Wonderful practitioners from across the country teaching us some really valuable things. And a lot of what they talk about are protocols that they prove and work inside their clinics for a variety of different issues. And we've had some success with these things too.

We've developed some pretty simple protocols here at Vitality, but the one that probably is the most well known is our protocol that we did in conjunction and cooperation with Cellcore, our 90 day parasite cleanse. And actually very soon you're going to hear about our next. Kind of update to what we're doing with the Parasite Cleanse on Vitality Radio as well. After the conference, Jen and I had this kind of heart to heart talk about how can we provide more for the people who listen to this show, the that spend time and money at Vitalty Nutrition and on vitalitynutrition.com and be more of a full service type of company for you.

There seemed to be a real demand and a really need for more comprehensive protocols that are simple to follow. not crazy expensive that don't necessarily require a doctor, a myriad of tests, but that you can just kind of piece together yourselves with some assistance from us. And so we decided we spent a couple of days at this beautiful little Airbnb on the Snake River in nature, walking down to the river each morning and looking at the sunset, all that kind stuff. It was just absolutely beautiful.

All we did was talk about protocols. We talked about what we can do and we actually came up with several protocols that we want to develop. And we've been then since then developing these protocols. This is the first one that. We're going to share with you the leaky got protocol. And it's going to be really simple, but it is going be comprehensive. And that's really what the goal was. It's also going significantly less expensive than you probably might think that it could be, especially when you factor in that there doesn't require blood tests, it doesn´t require stool tests.

it does not require saliva tests It doesn' require any of those types of things that are so typical in the functional health world. Nothing wrong with those things, they are just not always needed. So Jen was going to be here to present this one with me, but she got cold feet. She often gets cold. Just because she gets called feet, you know, we're on YouTube now with the podcast and she doesn't love the idea of doing this on video, But I'm talking her into it. And she'll be her for the next one.

But i'm doing the solo today and I can't wait to get into. So let's talk about what leaky gut actually is. First, the mechanism, because the term gets thrown around a lot. I think you probably have a basic understanding of it, but let's talk a little bit more clinically. Still going to keep it fairly high level, But I this will help you understand maybe a bit fully what it is, especially if you're one who hasn't looked into it much already. Your intestinal lining is a single layer of cells, which is crazy in itself.

There's not a lot there as a barrier. That lining, is your gatekeeper. Nutrients cross through it into your bloodstream. Everything else is supposed to stay inside the gut and move out through elimination. The cells are held together by structures called tight junctions. These are protein complexes that act kind of like zippers between adjacent cells. When these are working properly, the barrier is very selective. What's supposed to get in gets in, what doesn't belong in circulation stays out. When this tight junctions break down, when those zippers loosen due to inflammation and stress and wear and tear from a variety of different things we'll talk about in just a minute, The barrier becomes permeable.

in ways that it shouldn't be, partially digested food, particles, bacterial fragments, lipopolysaccharides from bacteria and inflammatory compounds cross into the bloodstream where they are not supposed to be. Your immune system encounters things it was never designed to deal with on a continuous basis and it responds. The result is a low grade systemic inflammatory state that can express itself just about anywhere in the body. And if that keeps going, that could end up in things like autoimmune disease.

The clinical term for this is intestinal hyperpermeability. This is not a fringe concept. There are decades of published research on intestin barrier function and its connection to inflammatory conditions. Autoimmune disease, metabolic dysfunction, skin disorders, and mood disorders is very well established in the literature. About 70% or so of your immune tissue itself lives in the gut in what's called the Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue. So when the barrier is compromised and inflammatory compounds are continuously crossing into circulation, your system is working overtime every single day without a break.

That persistent activation is the thread that connects leaky gut to the skin issues, to join aches, the mood instability, fatigue and the brain fog. It is a mechanism, not a coincidence. And we'll come back to just how far that thread extends when we talk about mental health later in the show. All right, so let's talk about the root causes and removing the assault that creates this in the first place, because that's really the most important aspect of this. This isn't optional information. this is really critical and important to the conversation.

You can do the best gut healing protocol in world and get limited results if you are continuously re-assaulting the terrain that you're actually trying to repair. It makes sense, right? It's like having a torn bicep and still lifting weights. Removing the causes is not step two, it's step one, running simultaneously with everything else. But I believe that if you're in this audience, you probably are already doing many of the things that are removing those root causes, but there are some that you may not be thinking of, or maybe you haven't gotten to yet.

Let's talk about number one. Public enemy number to some degree, and that's glyphosate and pesticides. This is where I want to start because this is probably the single most pervasive and under recognized assault on the gut lining in modern life. Glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in Roundup, the most widely used herbicide in the world, has been shown in research to disrupt the Gut microbiome by specifically targeting the beneficial bacteria while leaving more pathogenic organisms intact.

What's crazy is it's probably worse than an antibiotic in that way because antibiotics go after pathogens. Unfortunately, glyphosate tends to be more selective in going after just the good guys. Have you ever thought of it that? It also directly disrupts the tight junction integrity. The very structures that define whether your gut is leaky or not. And it's not just glyphosate, a broad range of pesticide residues in the conventional food supply have documented microbiome disrupting effects. This is the most compelling argument I can make for eating organic as much as possible, or at least choosing the clean 15 and avoiding the dirty dozen in your food.

These are not small exposures. They are daily, they are cumulative. and directly relevant to gut barrier function. And now in this wonderful country of ours, as we're just past our 250th anniversary, at least if you're listening here in these United States where I am, we have a Supreme Court that ruled seven to two in favor of Monsanto to say they don't even have to put a warning on glyphosate. They were asking for a cancer warning. But how about a warning of, hey, when you're feeding this to yourself or to your kids, you are killing your microbiome and potentially long-term creating leaky gut, which then can turn into autoimmune disease.

Nothing like that. They protected Monsanto completely. Seven out of nine judges. It's pathetic. Its disgusting. it's just more evidence that our country does not care about our health. They only care about corporate greed and dollars, and of course, whatever gets people elected and gets put in as judges.

Root Causes and Gut Barrier Damage 11:30

I'll stop ranting for now. Antibiotics. These can be miraculous drugs. We all know this. They can save lives, but they also wipe out the microbial ecosystem that plays a direct role in maintaining the mucosal barrier. A single course can shift gut ecology for months or years or permanently. Multiple courses over the years, which describes most adults in this country, represents a substantial cumulative disruption of the terrain. If you've had significant antibiotic exposure in your life, your gut microbiome has paid a price that may still be affecting you and likely is, especially if any of that exposure was as a child in the first four years of life when your microbiomes was being formed in first place.

So how do we avoid antibiotics? We educate ourselves. We listen to shows like Vitality Radio where I've done specific shows about that. And we learn how to do things naturally because in my view, and I'm very, very solid in this belief and living proof as are my children, we don't need antibiotics the vast majority of the time they're prescribed. Because I'd been on two in entire life and am 53 years old, 54 maybe by the times this airs. None of my kids have had an antibiotic. You don't have to do it most of the time, you just have be educated enough to figure out how not to.

So if you're still relying on antibiotics, please spend the to time to find out to avoid them. What about NSAIDs? Do we think about that? That's N-S-A-I-D-s. Ibuprofen, naproxen, sodium, aspirin clinically documented to increase intestinal permeability Immediately, by the way, not over time, but immediately. When you take them, they open things up. And when you them chronically, things tend to stay open. That evidence goes back decades. People take these casually and constantly and the cumulative effect.

on the gut lining is real and significant. This is one most people don't think about, but hormonal birth control. And it's a real issue. Oral contraceptives disrupt the got microbiome. They deplete key nutrients, including zinc and B vitamins that are critical for mucosal integrity and contribute to the kind of dysbiosis that both drives and perpetuates leaky gut. If you are on a hormonial birth, control or have been for a significant period of time, this belongs in your root cause picture. chronic stress, cortisol directly increases intestinal permeability.

That is a physiological mechanism, not a metaphor. The gut brain access runs in both directions and what's happening in your nervous system is actively affecting your gut lining at all times. Chronic stress is not soft cause. It is direct and measurable one. And I actually talked about that on Carl and Carl's show, the Just Ingredients podcast just A few weeks ago, if you didn't catch that episode, we talk a lot about cortisol and how impactful cortisol is in your health across the board, but gut health in particular.

And then of course, your diet, ultra processed foods, refined sugar and alcohol. all have documented connections to increase gut permeability. Gluten triggers the release of zonulin, a protein that directly modulates tight junction opening. Research out of the University of Maryland in the early 2000s reframed the entire conversation around gluten sensitivity when it was published. And dysbiosis, the wrong balance of organisms in gut both causes and perpetuates leaky gut in a self-reinforcing cycle.

The reason I'm being thorough here is that the protocol I am about to walk you through is powerful. It is effective and it works significantly better when you're not continuing to pour fuel on the fire while you are trying to put it out. Clean up what you can, eat organic where possible, filter your water, reduce unnecessary inset use, antibiotic use. Figure out options when it comes to medications that might mess with your gut. And of course address the stress. These are not optional lifestyle suggestions.

They're actually part of the protocol and in the. Protocol information that we will send you, if you decide to try this, we go through that as well and give you more tips and tricks and things that can help. Now, how was this protocol designed? Well, the how is me and Jen sitting there talking about it for a couple of days, but then we looked at. just this history that we have, especially that I have over all the years that i've owned Vitality Nutrition, now almost 33 years of owning this place and talking to people with these types of issues and recognizing that in almost every case there isn't a single ingredient that fixes a thing.

It is usually some sort of team effort and therefore a supplement protocol would be needed for something like leaky gut. We often have people come in looking for collagen for leaky gut or bone broth for Leaky Gut or colostrum or probiotics or glutamine or zinc L carnosine and all of these things are potentially very helpful. But my experience has shown me that over the years, this is a problem that is not a one solution fix. It's a combination of things that really make this work. And the reason for that is simple.

What's required is direct fuel for the cells that line the intestinal wall, but also structural support for tight junctions themselves. mucosal protection while repair is underway, a healthy microbial environment that supports rather than undermines the process, and anti-inflammatory support throughout to help keep things tight as the body is repairing. Those are distinct mechanisms and different ingredients address those distinct issues. Every product in this protocol has a defined role. Some roles overlap and that's intentional.

More than one ingredient here supports tight junction integrity, for example. That overlap is not redundancy though. When you're addressing something as structurally fundamental as gut barrier function, multiple mechanisms working on the same target from different angles is exactly the right approach. Research on multi-nutrient gut support consistently shows that combinations outperform any single ingredient in isolation. The core protocol, though, is still pretty simple. It's four products. CoreMend GI from our friends at CellCore, NutriBio L-glutamine powder, Vital Spores from Vitality Nutrition, and Source Naturals Zinc L Carnazine.

pretty straightforward and it's actually quite affordable for most people. Let's talk about the products and why they make sense. The first one and the biggest one is Cormen GI and we did learn about Corman GI at the Cellcore conference, which is what spurred this whole thing in the first place that we should be looking at a true leaky gut protocol. And frankly, this is how it went. We looked at the Coramind GI, we liked the coramand GI. We tasted the core mend GI it's a powder that you mix in water and it was very pleasant to drink.

So we weren't worried about that. But as I was looking through the formula, what I recognized was a good solid gut support product that would probably over time help to heal and strengthen leaky gut. I simply didn't think on its own for quick. Significant benefit. It is enough. I felt like it needed more support and that's why we decided to add to it, but it is the core of this program. That is called core mend. And I do really like what they've done with this product. There's just, you can't throw everything into one product, right?

So the ingredients list. really kind of anchors everything else that we're talking about in this protocol. L-glutamine at 2,000 milligrams. Glutamin is a primary fuel source for the enterocytes, the cells that actually line your intestinal wall. These cells turn over rapidly and have high energy demands. When glutamine is depleted, Research published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences confirms that glutamine promotes enterocyte proliferation, regulates tight junction proteins directly, and suppresses pro-inflammatory signaling in gut.

We're adding more glutamate on top of this though because the dosing is, I still think, a little low in this formula. The next ingredient, and I love this one, And I loved the dose of it, is N-Acetyl-D-Glucosamine. Most people think it's Glucoseamine for joint health. And it is great for Joint health, but this specific form is a structural building block for the mucous layer itself. The protective gel coating that sits between the gut contents and the epithelial cells. most gut protocols ignore this mucus layer entirely, But this formula doesn't.

and i love that they added it to the ingredients list. Licorice root extract at 400 milligrams is a very gut-supportive herb. It has a long track record in botanical medicine for maintaining the protective mucus layer and supporting mucosal integrity. So you've got two excellent things for the mucous layer there. Aloe vera leaf extract, at 300 milligrams, direct anti-inflammatory activity in gut tissue supporting the soothing environment the lining needs while cellular repair happens underneath.

Quercetin at 200 milligrams, research published in 2019, found that quercetin directly supports the expression of the tight junction proteins, occludin and cloudin, the actual structural proteins that hold those cellular zippers closed. It's working at the molecular level on the precise structures that define gut barrier integrity. Also, slippery almond marshmallow root, two of the most well-regarded mucosal dimulsants in herbal medicine. They coat the lining and create the soothing environment that the gut needs while repair happens at cellular level.

It also has a few other supportive ingredients, MSM, cat's claw, chamomile, all of these are valuable as well, but I wanna focus on a couple others that I think are really, really critical here. L theanine at 100 milligrams, which is kind of weird. Honestly, I looked at that and I was like, wait a minute, L Theanin, but it makes perfect sense. And, and it fits brilliantly. This is one of the things that I love about Cellcore. They do tend to think outside the box at a hundred milligrams. It's a smart formula addition because it helps with modulating cortisol.

And I already talked about how big of an impact cortisol can have on the gut. So it's a really nice addition there. Zinc as a very specific form, zinc L-carnazine, which I'll talk about in more detail a little bit later in the show. It's an meaningful addition, but this is another one where I thought we really need more than what's in this formula. And then this one is big. Four grams of something called solnol resistant potato starch mixed with partially hydrolyzed guar gum. These are prebiotic fibers.

And these fibers are really, really cool. I've known about this for a while, but I wasn't familiar with this sol nol-resistant potato And I'm going to get into those in a second. But then the other thing that was kind of iffy for me was when I first started looking at the cormand, trying to figure out why did they choose the GI probiotics that they did. Three billion units of lacto-planted bacillus plantarum, also lactobacillis rhamnosus and bifidobacterium longum. These three strains though are selected for a very wise reason.

They specifically work at the mucosal adhesion level and immune modulation in the gut associated with the lymphoid tissue itself. Targeted strains with documented relevance to gut lining support, not general purpose probiotics here. So as I was looking at this, My first thought was you got to have spores in here, some very specific spore and I'll explain why in a little bit. But as I researched these three individual ingredients, these 3 probiotics, I realized exactly what they're going for and it makes perfect sense.

Now I want to get back to that fiber blend. because there's a story here that goes really deep and I'm pretty excited about it. Solnol is a clinically studied resistant potato starch, what they call RS2 type, which means it resists digestion in the small intestine and arrives in a large intestine intact where it ferments slowly and selectively. A 2023 randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial found that just 3.5 grams of this specific fiber produced significantly larger amounts of Bifidobacterium and Ackermansia after four weeks compared to the placebo.

Now Bipidbacteria, most people have heard of. It's human strain probiotics. They're largely found in the colon. These are really important.

Building the Core Leaky Gut Protocol 24:18

All good. But Acromancia, if you've heard me talk about my GLP-1 metabolic optimizer formula, you heard be talking on Carlin's podcast. You know, I'm a huge believer in acromancia. I absolutely love this probiotic. It is a keystone organism specifically associated with the health of the mucus layer, that exact protective gel coating that we've been talking about through this entire segment. It feeds on and helps maintain mucin, the structural protein the gut uses to build that muxosal barrier. The fact that a prebiotic fiber in this formula is selectively feeding the organism most responsible for mucus layer integrity is awesome.

It's precisely the right target in a leaky gut context. And I love that Cellcore did this. In fact, One of the things I was looking for in the formula was acromansia. It's not there, but something that feeds acromancia is, and so they just did it in a different way. The other fiber, partially hydrolyzed guar gum, adds another dimension. it is a soluble fiber that ferments in colon to produce short chain fatty acids, primarily butyrate, acetate and propionate. And butyrite is the primary fuel source for colonocytes.

the cells lining your large intestine and it directly supports barrier function from the lower GI end. A 2019 randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial found that three months of this specific type of fiber significantly improved stool form in people with IBS-like symptoms. A separate crossover trial found it modulated gut microbiome composition and increased bifidobacterium populations. Together, these two fibers are selectively feeding the organisms most relevant to gut barrier integrity while simultaneously producing the metabolites those cells need to function.

That is a fiber blend that makes a ton of sense. And it's the reason why Cormand is at the base of this combination. this protocol that we put together is because it's so well thought out. As again, I said at the beginning, and I'll always call it out, even with companies that I love, like Cellcore. I think the formula could be more complete, could a little more potent in a couple of areas, a lot more comprehensive. But I understand why they didn't do it quite like what I'm recommending. And I the single biggest thing might just simply be price.

What's interesting is we've figured out a way through the combination that we're developing for this protocol or that, we've developed for the protocol to still keep the price at a very reasonable level and give you all of the support that I believe that you need. L-glutamine, 10 grams per day, is the next ingredient. Cormand already has two grams of glutamine per serving, and that's a real evidence-supported contribution, but it's just not enough based on the research that is out there. Most of the researchers out here is somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 to 15 grams a day.

In fact, there's 2019 study of 115 adults with post-infectious IBS. who had confirmed elevated intestinal permeability at baseline. So we knew they had IBS and they definitely had intestinol permeabilty aka leaky gut. The dose was five grams three times per day of L-glutamine. for eight weeks, nearly 80% of participants in the glutamine group hit the primary endpoint of the study versus just about 6% in placebo group. Intestinal permeability markers normalized significantly. And in a 2024 systematic review of meta-analysis of 12 different randomized controlled trials, they found that glutamine on its own was one of these strongest things that has ever been studied for permeabilty effects.

at higher doses. So between the Cormin GI formula from Cellcore and the two scoops of L-glutamine from NutriBio, you're getting 12 grams, which puts you in the sweet spot in my book between 10 and 15 grams a day. And we already know that there's a ton of benefit to just L-glutamine, but then you get all of those additional benefits with the Cellcore product as well. Neutral Bio is the brand that I'm recommending here because they are among the most transparent companies in the industry, fully disclosed labels, no fillers, third party tested, two scoops equals 10 grams, and they're also one of the more economical products for this purpose.

So, absolutely love that as the second leg of this four-leg stool that we're recommending here for the protocol. The third thing you've already heard about, but you may not know much about it, and that's zinc L-carnazine. Zinc L carnazine, known in Japan as palaprazinc, has a clinical history that separates it from most supplement ingredients on the market. It went through a full pharmaceutical approval process in japan and has been prescribed there as a drug for gastric mucosal support since 1994. A phase three trial comparing it to an established gastro drug found a 51% clinical outcome rate at eight weeks confirmed by endoscopy.

a multi-center randomized controlled trial in 224 patients confirmed comparable effectiveness to another established mcd drug also at eight weeks. But what's cool about it is that it's a prescription drug in Japan, but is a natural supplement. It is zinc bonded to L-Carnazine and amino acids. So a mineral and an amino acid, basically a chelate, and yet this stuff is awesome. And it awesome at very low doses. What makes it unique is it physically adheres to the mucosal lining in the gut. it binds at sites of damage and releases zinc locally.

like goes in there and actually sits where the repair is needed, supports cellular repair, acting as a direct antioxidant, stabilizing tight junction proteins, and suppressing pro-inflammatory cytokines right where they're needed. A 2007 randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial in healthy volunteers showed that in just seven days of supplementation, it completely prevented the three-fold increase in intestinal permeability that the placebo group experienced from NSAID use. Now I want to get into that a little bit.

I told you that NSAIDS, aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, sodium, Aleve, all that stuff, that those drugs have an immediate effect. It's about three X in fact, in a week's time, three times as much intestinal permeability or leaky gut showing up in seven days on these drugs. And when taking Zinc-L-Carnazine, That disappeared. that is targeted and direct results very, very quickly. Now, Cormand already contributes Zinc-L-Carnazine, but it contributes not the full clinical dose. I want you to have the whole clinical those because we know that it works and Zin-Kal-Car-Nazin is really pretty inexpensive.

It's like 13 bucks for a month supply. So why not? So now we have a true comprehensive three leg stool, but it's not quite done yet. This protocol, there's one more ingredient. I already told you what it was at the beginning. And it is the one that I, of course, am probably the most fond of because it s mine. But regardless, I've had such good success with Vital spores the vital five probiotic with leaky gut and people with these types of symptoms all by itself now for over five years since we introduced it you cannot in my view create a leaking up protocol that doesn't include these specific spore probiotics and Saccharomyces boulardii.

So let's talk about it vital spurs is this comprehensive four ingredient formula that covers a ton of bases with three spores, bacillus coagulans, Bacillis subtilis, and a yeast that I absolutely love called Saccharomyces boulardii. Between those ingredients, there are a total of eight billion units of activity in this formula, but five billion of that is in the bacilli spore strains. and bacillus coagulans is among the most researched probiotic strains available in 2019 double blind randomized placebo controlled trial.

You'll notice that I keep saying double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled. These are legitimate gold standard studies proving this in real humans, not animals, showing that this stuff works. This specific trial was done and what they showed that there was a significant reduction in bloating, abdominal pain, and stool frequency over 90 days in IBS patients. A 2018 trial found significant improvement of both GI symptoms and food markers at 90-days, a direct signal through the gut-brain axis that we'll come back to in just a minute.

And then bacillus subtilis has been extensively studied at the Royal Holloway University in London, and a human trial using a spore blend including that spores for 30 days showed significant reduction in intestinal permeability markers, including circulating endotoxins, which is a massive sign that you've got leaky gut. When you see all that stuff in the blood, leakey gut is there. And the three probiotics that are found in vital spores were all present in the probiotic that was studied at the Royal Holloway University of London.

But vital sports also has a secret weapon that is not found that probiotically and that's called Saccharomyces boulardii. Three billion units, one of the most well studied probiotical organisms in world. It inhibits myosin light chain phosphorylation. a specific molecular mechanism that directly preserves tight junction integrity. A 2019 review confirmed its role in restoring intestinal barrier function across multiple clinical conditions. a human study in Crohn's disease patients found it reduced intestinial permeability by 33% in three months.

Now think about this. That's the end of the main protocol for products. And throughout, I talked about four weeks, eight weeks 12 weeks of these things showing significant reductions in leaky gut all by themselves. As you know, by now, if you're a regular listener to this show, and especially if he heard me talk about the GLP one metabolic optimizer, my approach is simple. I want to find ingredients that work all themselves, And then I want to find other ingredients that are synergistic, or that we at least hope will be synergic when combined, that also work all by themselves.

What we've done here with this protocol, and I'm extremely excited about it, as you can probably tell, I am kind of oozing with excitement here, with his product combination. As we have really done what Cellcore did, by putting a bunch of the right ingredients in there, And adding just a few more of our own that we felt were either missing at high enough doses in the cell core product or were missing entirely. But all of what's in this protocol works all by itself. And when combined, we believe it will get better results more quickly.

And more permanently, particularly if we do what I talked about at the very beginning of the show, and that is remove as many of assaults as we possibly can. So each of these four products means something on their own. And each individual ingredient in these products makes a lot of impact on its own. But when we put these things together and we look at the seven days and the four weeks and eight weeks, and 12 weeks. And all of the different trials, we believe that within 30 days, there will be a significant improvement in many cases, a noticeable improvement.

And within 60 days, even more, and within 90 days more than that. And then at that point, it's a matter of trying to figure out, do I need to go beyond what I've already done? Or am I already getting the results that I hoped that would get? Now, I'm going to recommend three months based on that, But the short-term human data across these ingredients, combined with a clear understanding of their mechanisms and decades of functional medicine clinical observation, all point in the same direction, that one month is probably enough to know it's working for you or it is not.

I don't know that in many cases, one month will be enough to do the job, but I do believe that one, month, will, be, enough, to know, that the, job is being done. So let's talk about the protocol when it comes to mental health. I want to give this a very specific section. And there's a reason for that. Just yesterday, actually, when as I'm recording this anyway, with a client who is a wonderful young woman who I've been working with now for about three months.

Mental Health and the Gut-Brain Connection 37:18

And prior to me working her as a, client over the phone, she was a listener to the podcast and she started doing two simple things for her mental health. She did not, as she put it, tell me that she thought they were going to be particularly effective, but she hoped that they would be, She was kind of given it a 50, 50 shot, As she said. She was doing vital spores and vital five magnesium because anxiety was crippling. She really, really struggling. And she said to me that it kind of gave her her life back.

complete game changer, absolutely massive difference. And I believe that that's really, really simple. She got all this information from previous episodes of the podcast, but everything I just said about those probiotics matters, that vital spores formula, those key ingredients. We know what they do as psychobiotics, actually improving mental health by improving gut brain access. And we know that magnesium nourishes the central nervous system and that is significantly depleted in people that deal with chronic stress.

So two things for probiotics in the one formula and the magnesium changed her life. I'm so confident in this protocol because just the probiotics alone works so well for so many people and just glutamine by itself works. So well, for many. Now core men, frankly, it's brand new. We've. Hardly sold any of it, I've had no feedback on it. So I don't know how well it's going to work, but I know well how it should work based on what I told you about all those key incredible ingredients in there. And we know what Zinc-L-Carnazine does, we talked about that.

But let's talk about this mental health game because this particular client, the reason I brought her up, is that she wasn't looking for gut health improvement, she was looking mental improvement. And that is such a hidden, maybe, incredible, beautiful, positive side effect of fixing leaky gut. About 90% of your body's serotonin is produced in the gut. You probably have heard that. Dopamine precursor synthesis depends heavily on the microbiome. GABA signaling has direct connections to the enteric nervous system.

The vast neural network embedded in your gut walls that communicates constantly with your brain through the vagus nerve. All of that starts down there. When the got lining is compromised and the microbial ecosystem is disrupted, the signaling environment for neurotransmitter production and communication that it provides is fundamentally impaired. These neurotransmitters don't work efficiently when the terrain they're produced in is inflamed and dysbiotic. That's not a metaphor, that's just how the body works.

The field of psychobiotics has produced compelling research in the last decade showing that specific probiotic strains directly influence mood, anxiety, and cognitive function through the gut-brain axis. A 2018 randomized trial found that Vasilis coagulans, the same genus found in vital spores, produced significant improvements in mood scores alongside GI symptoms improvement in 90 days. These are not soft findings. This gut-brain connection is mechanistic. It's bi-directional, gut to brain, brain to gut, and well characterized in the research.

And then there's the inflammatory piece. When bacterial fragments and lipopolysaccharides continuously cross a compromised gut lining, they trigger systemic immune activation. That systemic inflammatory activation crosses into the brain. Neuroinflammation is now recognized as a significant driver of depression, anxiety, and cognitive dysfunction. Research out of multiple institutes in the last decade has directly linked elevated intestinal permeability to markers of neuroinflammations and mood disorders.

Healing the gut lining reduces that inflammatory load. That is the mechanism in which gut repair can produce real and sometimes dramatic improvements in mental health. It's a direct effect. I called it a happy side effect earlier, but it's really a effect of reducing systemic inflammatory burden. People who heal their gut often describe feeling more like themselves than they have in years. Clear thinking, more emotional stability, less anxiety that seems to come from nowhere. That is not a coincidence.

that is the gut brain access working the way it supposed to work when the barrier is intact. If you're listening to this and mental health is part of your picture, anxiety, depression, brain fog, mood instability, that doesn't make sense given your circumstances, please take the gut line and conversation seriously. It may be the most important thing that you haven't addressed yet. Now I'm going to recommend one extra thing you may want to consider. Actually, I am going recommend two extra things you might want consider and then I'll talk about how this protocol comes together, what it costs, all that stuff will be on the table at the end of this show, which is almost over I promise.

If you feel like you've got a more severe case, maybe you got autoimmune disease, Maybe you read about some of these other ingredients that I'm about to talk about and feel they make sense for you. Maybe your already using them. If wanted to add a couple of things onto this, there are a few things you could consider. Colostrum is one of the things that i recommend. Ancient nutrition colostum. is my top add-on because it works in a completely different way than just about everything else in this bundle.

This protocol that we've put together, bovine colostrum, of course, is the first milk produced by cows after birth. And it has extraordinarily a dense amount of immunoglobulins, sorry, including IgG and IgA growth factors, and lactoferrin. These growth factors stimulate proliferation and repair of intestinal epithelial cells and support the synthesis of tight junction proteins. The same proteins targeted by quercetin and cormand from an entirely different biological pathway and possibly in a stronger way than what 200 milligrams of quersitin can do.

The immunoglobulin content, particularly secretory IgA, helps neutralize pathogens at the gut surface and supports the mucosal immune environment directly. So the reason it's an add-on rather than the core is that the evidence based for the four core products is more directly and specifically targeted to gut lining repair. Colostrum strong research is in athletes and people under specific pharmacological gut stress. And it is good research, but it just not as deep and it not certain. Frankly, I wanted to keep the price in a reasonable level that most people can handle without much trouble.

uh, financially. And so I'll say this. If you can handle an extra 40 bucks or so per month, the colostrum makes a lot of sense, especially if you're really struggling and maybe even just in the first month or two, uh to kind of kick start this thing. But if not go with the basic protocol, it has all the proof. and I frankly think it's going to be good enough for most people, um, right out of the gate and that we're going get you where you want to. Even if it takes a few months to get there. And what I am going to do is I'm going offer the colostrum, which is normally 55 bucks a month.

The ancient nutrition colastrum is the brand that I recommend.

Add-Ons, Lifestyle, and Dosing 44:54

I trust their brand. And it's normally about 55 for a 60 day supply, but I don't think the supply is really 60 days. You need to take two servings per day. and I was able to negotiate a deal in conjunction with what we're doing with this protocol to where I'll be able give you 30% off on it. So it is about $55. That brings it down to the $40 range. And like I say, for a month supply, if you want to add it on. So you get the 30% off if. You get. The protocol along with it. Now let's talk a little bit about lifestyle and then we'll get to rest of the protocol, the pricing and dosing and all that kind of stuff.

the supplements do a lot, but there are things that you can do that. Or change in your diet that I think can make a huge difference. I am a massive fan of raw milk, cows milk or goats milk. Either one is fine. My shaker cup here is got our bone broth protein, rebuild protein plus half raw milk and half water. It's breakfast almost every day for me. Big believer in raw, milk, obviously get it from a place that's reputable, that has a history in your area, but don't be scared of raw. Milk. it's not the big scary thing that the government makes it out to be.

Can I just digress for a minute? Do you realize that? The government is protecting Monsanto more than it is. Protecting raw-milk farmers. Think about that for a minute. Stuff is pretty backwards in this country and we need to fight back as a people. and we need to not be scared of the things the government tells us to be afraid of, we probably need be scare of things that government tell us not to scared off. That's really the truth here. But back to raw milk. Raw milk contains beneficial bacteria, natural enzymes, immunoglobulins, and growth factors that are largely destroyed by pasteurization.

It is a living food that supports the mucosal environment and the microbiome in ways that processed dairy simply cannot. And you may be thinking to yourself, I don't do milk, it hurts me when I drink milk Especially if you have an autoimmune issue or especially if You have a severe gut issue like IBS or you Have a lot of sensitivity to dairy when you drink it or You, have Crohn's or ulcerative colitis but you know what i've seen I've seen this people with lactose intolerance almost always do great with raw milk.

People that don't do well with casein almost, always, do fine with, raw, milk, people who have Crohn's disease. And it wrecks them when they drink pasteurized milk almost. Always do good with. Raw milk it is two different things. Please don' think dairy is dairy. please. Don't think milk is milk raw. Milk and paste, rye's milk living healthy. This is a great health food. Pasteurized milk, not so much. Another thing you can consider, true fermented foods are in the same category for me, a living probiotic food, really, good for your gut.

And then the last thing I'll say as far as foods that you could add to your protocol would be bone broth. You can make your own bone bath. If you're gonna be industrious like that, do it, please. Just use organic, grass-fed, pasteurize, all the good stuff if you gonna make you bone-broth. You can buy bone broth, you can do it a whole bunch of different ways. You could make soup out of it. And you could do a lot of things with it, but what I do, as I said, is I drink it right here with the Rebuild Plus formula from Vitality Nutrition.

It's the most delicious chocolate shake ever. I put it with my raw milk and that is something I use every day as a gut health cocktail, if you want to call it that, that just happens to also be breakfast. So that's another thing you can consider doing as well. Additional options you may want consider, and then we'll get into the protocol. Again, I know I keep throwing that at you, but we're almost there. I promise. Just want make sure you have all the options in front of you. Aion Gut Support from Intelligence of Nature.

This is a product that I feel strongly about. So strongly that I've dedicated a couple of entire episodes, including episode four 27, it's going to be linked in the show description. Listen to that and see what you think. It's a soil-derived folvate. I love it. Detoxifying it, healing. There's two reasons I left it out of the protocol. One is it fairly expensive. About 70 bucks for a bottle of ion gut support. Don't think it needed for. most people that are listening to this, but for people who are really severely compromised, it's something you may want to consider.

I wouldn't necessarily consider it right out of the gate, I'd consider after a month or two on the protocol if you decide to do the protocols, if feel you need more support. But I love it. Go listen to the show and see what you think. And then the other thing I will mention, just because it is so critical for overall digestion, And for the stress response and everything else is a couple of the vital five things, omega-3 for all the positive anti-inflammatory benefits and digestive enzymes, of course, for All the reasons, breaking down your food more easily, reducing putrefaction in the gut and decreasing the need for The gut to work so hard, creating more inflammatory signaling, that kind of thing.

These are other things that you may want to consider. Now let's talk about the dosing of this thing and what it actually costs. Cause I think you're going to be surprised. It's just not too bad. At least I hope you agree with me, especially whenever you see everything that's included every morning on an empty stomach. Cormin GI one stick pack in water. Neutrobio L glutamine one scoop five grams. These have to be on an empty stomach at least 30 to 45 minutes before you eat. If you're taking other empty-stomach things, most of those can be done with these.

But if you have questions, you can ask us in the chat and don't worry about these directions too much. I'm going to do this real simply. if decide to get the protocol, You'll have very targeted directions that come along with it. And then in the evening, you take one scoop of glutamine. I'm just giving you this so you know what's in, what it entails. So you're not wondering, okay, how hard is this going to be? You're also then with a meal going, to take Source Naturals, Zinc, Alkanazine, one capsule.

And if you decide to add colostrum, and you are going do two scoops of that per day, I would do a scoop with each scoop, of your glutamines. The glutamin at night on an empty stomach, at least two hours after you eat, And the glutami in morning with the Coramind. The Zinc-L-Carnazine one capsule per day and the Vital Spores one Capsule per Day as well with a meal. That's the entire protocol. Pretty simple. Drink plenty of water and do everything that you can from a lifestyle standpoint to support it.

The bundle options that we have for you are a one-month bundle and a three- month bundle, depending on how much you think you need, how you want to kind of dip your toes in versus jumping all in, and also how many you wanna save, because I am trying to make it as economical as possible for the 30-day bundle. Coram NGI plus Nutri-Bioglutamine plus Vital Spores plus the Source Natural Zinc-L-Carnazine is normally $158, but we're taking it down a little more than 20% to $125.99. So that's your one month supply.

Now you're not going to be on this month after month, after a month. But you may be out at month that per month right? So three months, four months six months depending on your situation. It might be longer than that if you've got an autoimmune thing, but what I do believe as I said earlier in the show and I really do. Believe this you are going get there. to the point of significant benefit way before you get to maximum benefit. If that makes sense. I think you're going to be seeing some real improvement within the first several weeks of doing this.

And then it should get better and better, and at one point you'll be able to decide if you want to reduce everything down or completely out, or maybe even get one product. Maybe it's just the vital spores part of the Vital 5 on a regular basis. It's kind of a maintenance thing. You can decide at that point. The 90 day bundle is $329. So now we're talking $110 instead of $116 per month. That's over 30% off of full retail. And that is what I recommend 12 weeks on this protocol. It's really a full 90 days on this protocol, makes all kinds of sense based on the research, because just like what I talked about in the GLP-1 protocol episode, the same applies here.

The research was all done somewhere, well, in this one, as short as seven days, but as long as 12 weeks, and we want to see optimal benefit. And frankly, leaky gut didn't happen overnight, it's not going to repair itself overnight. But I do believe that if you start with one month, you're going be absolutely thrilled. Remove the root causes first. Do the things that I recommend in the protocol. Shift around the lifestyle. This is how we heal leaky gut. I'm so excited to share this with you. And remember, you'll get the products with this protocol.

You'll give the discount with his protocol, there will be links in the show description on exactly how to find it. Also for at least the first few months after this episode, we'll have a banner up there. It'll be real easy to. If you type in vitality, leaky gut protocol you can find that way as well at VitalityNutrition.com. Of course we have it in store as. Well, You get that and you get a little booklet. that is comprehensive in nature of the lifestyle stuff. So you have that stuff there. It's going to have a little response chart in there where you can actually track your symptomology to see if you're making improvements.

Everything that you need will be in this. You're going Booklet that acts as your coach along with this episode of vitality radio We want to support you as much as we possibly can I'd love feedback on this show and I can't wait to hear feedback On the protocol if you like the idea of these protocols that are laid out Specifically for specific issues that you may be dealing with and you'll like The way that we did it let us know if You feel it needs improvement. Let us. Know you can let Us know in the chat vitalty nutrition comm you Can call us at 801 292 66 62 You can come into our South Ogden location or our bountiful location and talk to us personally right now, almost every Tuesday and Wednesday.

If you want to see me, I'm at the South ogden and location. I'd love to meet you if I haven't met you already. That's it for this episode of vitality radio. that is the leaky gut protocol. i'm so excited to get it out there. Please let me know what you think. And if you have questions, call us 801-292-6662. Thanks for listening to the Vitality Radio Podcast. If this episode helped you, follow the show, share it with someone and explore trusted education and resources at vitalitynutrition.com. See you next time.

Hello, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Vitality Radio. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only. This podcast has not been evaluated by the FDA. Thank you.